


My Kind of Town

by LilyRosePotter



Category: Pod Save America (RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Nostalgia, OT3, Tour Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 22:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12780564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyRosePotter/pseuds/LilyRosePotter
Summary: "But also, just fucking tell us the next time you're feeling left out instead of stewing all day and stealing the nachos that were meant to be for everyone, you weirdo."





	My Kind of Town

He's woken up by the thud of the wheels hitting the ground. “Please remain in your seats until we've reached the gate. At this time you may use your personal electronic devices.” Lovett sleepily gropes for the phone in his pocket, flipping off the airplane mode. For once he'd been too tired, getting on this last of  seven flights in five days to fight with the gogo wifi so dozens of notifications flood in. The now familiar tug of anxiety rises as he clicks into twitter. No nuclear attacks or dramatic shifts in policy seem to have occurred in the past five hours so he sighs in relief and opens whatsapp.

There are twenty seven messages from Favs and Tommy alone. He saves those and opens the Crooked thread to scroll through pictures of Dan asleep with his mouth open on the bus, Elijah holding a sharpie threateningly next to his face. Further up the thread, Tanya's captioned a photo of all the others surrounded by multiple bottles of Gatorade and cups of coffee at breakfast: “when you football too hard.” Lovett can't suppress his laugh, zooming in on their miserable faces. Tommy looks like the world has betrayed him by continuing to spin, which checks out, honestly, with how sloppy he'd sounded when they called him last night. Favs, on the other hand, is smiling blissfully, clearly checked out of whatever conversation is going on around him. He'd had a good day and night, Lovett knows. He loves football games and tailgating, cheering for a team, any team. Despite the arbitrary adoption of the home team, he'd had the joyful high of a win in his voice last night, slurred with the alcohol he'd started drinking at noon and apparently never stopped.

He backs out of the Crooked thread and opens their group chat. It's filled with pictures of his boys. Favs curled on Tommy's chest in the hotel room, bleary eyed and pale with their hangovers. Another version of the hotel breakfast table, Tommy's perfect posture abandoned as he slumps forward into his eggs. Favs climbing onto the bus with two large Starbucks cups clutched in his hands, tablet clutched under his elbow precariously. Tommy staring out the window, laptop abandoned in his lap in the background of a selfie where Favs and Tanya are pulling stupid faces. A litany of typed out jokes and commentary from the road trip. The 'Welcome to Ohio' sign, blurry as they drove by, with the unnecessary filter Tommy insists on applying to his tourist shots. By the time they got to the Ohio Turnpike rest stop they seem to have shaken off the worst of their hangovers and are back to acting like teenagers on their first trip without their parents. Tommy seriously studying the history signs, accompanied by video of a dramatic reading of the construction story as Favs loses it in the background. Dan and Favs in the gift shop with ridiculous neon hats. A display of t-shirts with disturbing right-wing slogans about guns and God, accompanied by the confederate flag. Tommy holding up an oversized cross necklace in a garish American flag pattern, with a disgusted look on his face. Favs staring at the menu of the rest stop fast food.

As Lovett stands up to finally get off the plane his phone buzzes again. He looks down to a selfie of the two of them, each with a meatball prominently and suggestively displayed between their lips. He laughs out loud as he tucks his phone away and grabs his bag. God he misses them. It’s only been 36 hours and they’ve been having fun while he sat on airplanes and didn’t get enough sleep and missed them.

“Get a fucking grip.” He mutters to himself, punching the hotel address into Lyft. He takes a picture of the Cleveland Hopkins sign and sends it to them as he waits for the car. Tommy’s response comes through as the Lyft is merging onto the highway. The two of them are leaning into each other, back on the bus, grinning like the fools they are. Lovett smiles, tracing the outlines of their faces, fingers moving of their own volition.

             JF: We’ll see you in less than an hour!  
             JL: I’m swooning with excitement… or jetlag. This show tonight is going to be loose.  
            TV: And that’s different from any other show because?  
            TV: The hotel room should be ready when you get there, take a nap  
             JL: Don’t tell me what to do mom!

Lovett leans back against the seat, almost asleep in spite of himself when the car stops in front of the hotel. He thanks the driver, grabs his bag, and walks into the hotel on autopilot. The receptionist behind the desk has to ask him a couple of times for his name while he’s fumbling with his wallet for the company card. Later he won’t remember walking to the elevator and trying several times to open the room door, planting face down in the middle of the king bed, asleep before his head hits the pillow.

 Lovett blinks awake to a warm, heavy weight settling on top of him. He rolls from his side to his back and Favs’ arm slides down around his waist as his head leans on Lovett’s shoulder. A gentle pressure lands on his forehead as Tommy leans down on his other side. Lovett presses his face into Tommy’s broad chest to hide his dopey smile and Favs mumbles something as he shifts so that his head doesn’t fall from Lovett’s shoulder.

 “...Missed you”

"Favreau you sap, it has been less than two days. We are independent grown ass men.” His chest feels really warm and full somehow, but that’s probably just because Favs is laying on it and he’s like a fucking space heater. Lovett’s pretty sure he could stay here cuddled between them forever.

An indeterminate amount of time later, someone’s phone buzzes and Lovett reluctantly pushes himself up on his elbows ignoring Favs’ groan of displeasure as his head is dislodged. “You have to feed me before the show if you don't want my stomach to growl the whole time we are talking to Senator Brown. I already yelped it and there's a taco place around the corner. I want tacos. Come on." Lovett shoves Favs out of bed as Tommy laughs. 

After stuffing their faces with tacos and pear gorgonzola guacamole and lobster corn queso, which is honestly heaven, they’re walking to the theater when Lovett spots a gourmet popcorn shop. Tommy and Favs both groan as he heads for the door.

“How the fuck can you even think about eating anything else? I’m so fucking full.” 

"We're going to be in Chicago tomorrow, we can go to Garretts."

"But this place has caramel apple and cotton candy popcorn!" Lovett insists. After he’s tried each of the weird flavors and purchased several bags he lets them pull him to the theater. Lovett just about falls asleep in the greenroom while Tommy, Favs, Dan and Senator Brown talk about baseball until Connie, who is real nice, starts talking to him about their dog. Lovett can always show off pictures of Pundit. 

He feels like he floats through the show. It’s going well, he can tell his jokes are landing, the interview is a rousing success. When they return to the hotel they stay up far too long, cuddled together in bed. Lovett drifts off as Favs and Tommy talk over each other, telling him about the game and the road trip, lulled to sleep by the comforting familiarity of their voices and the warmth of their bodies next to him.

\------------

Monday morning they’re woken up by the twangy sound of Lovett’s emergency alarm. Tommy disentangles himself to reach for it.  “Shit guys we have like twenty minutes before we have to meet everyone to leave for the airport.” Lovett grumbles at him and curls more firmly into Favs’ warmth as Tommy stands up and starts tucking the three things he unpacked back into his suitcase. He disappears into the bathroom and reappears in the Ohio State shirt he’d been handed yesterday before the show, pulling the covers off the bed and shaking Favs’ leg. “I’m going down to the lobby to get coffee, seriously, you have to get up now.”

By the time Tommy comes back with coffee, they’ve mostly gotten themselves together. Favs is in the bathroom while Lovett haphazardly shoves things into his bag. He picks up a Friend of the Pod t-shirt from the chair and squints at it. He’s pretty sure he didn’t pack this color but it seems to be clean and relatively unwrinkled so he pulls it over his head. 

“That’s my shirt.” Tommy says, handing him a coffee cup. 

“Good. Ownership is a construct.” Tommy laughs helplessly as Favs comes out of the bathroom and makes grabby hands for the coffee cup. Tommy holds it away from him towards the door. 

“Let’s go, we’re already late.” 

As the Lyft pulls up to the airport, now that he’s had coffee and is awake, Favs is starting to twitch with flight anxiety. Lovett reaches up to the front seat to tap Tommy’s shoulder. Tommy twists around and puts a hand on Favs’ knee. “Do you remember that time the plane into Chicago was delayed by the blizzard and I had to run into that fundraiser in a cornhuskers hoodie?"

Favs laughs hollowly. “Yeah that was classy as fuck. Do you remember the time the bus driver took the back roads all the way from Iowa and Plouffe almost puked?"

They’re still exchanging campaign stories after clearing security and sitting down at the gate. They have a ritual when they fly. Favs freaks out from the moment he starts thinking about getting on the plane. Sometimes he tries to hide it. Sometimes, like today, he’s visibly jittery even to strangers. Tommy is the designated Favreau soother, because he has more than a decade of experience and he’s really fucking good at it. Lovett puts on headphones and hates the world because airports are the goddamn worst places on planet earth. Once on the plane, he’ll shove up the armrest and cuddle with Favs if he’s next to him or use Tommy as a human pillow, rearranging his ridiculous limbs to suit him. But at the gate, woe betide the stranger, coworker, or boyfriend who tries to talk to him.

As they get in the Lyft in Chicago, the nostalgia has transitioned into plans for the day.

"We have to go to the beach!"

"Oh can we eat at Declan’s for dinner?"

"Wait we should drive past the old pad!"

Their phones all buzz at the same time with a text from Mike about the after-party he’s organized with Obamaworld in Chicago. He’s reserved space at some bar that they apparently used to frequent in the campaign days and that sets off another round of reminiscing between Tommy, Favs, and Dan. Lovett had been endeared by the reminiscing at first, but it’s now been more than three hours of stories he can’t contribute to.

“Well we have to go do the Q&A  so your tour down memory lane will have to be cut short"

Favs grins at him delightedly, "No I think we'll have plenty of time! Oh we should go to the deli for lunch before the Q&A”  
  
"Literally did you ignore what I just said?" Lovett grumbles back.

"No, Lo, it’s on our way to the university."

Tommy says "Yes we have to go they make the best tuna salad! There’s our silver lining to our dumb choice to fly into O’Hare instead of Midway."

“The deli” turns out to be named the New York Bagel Deli, providing Lovett fodder for a few half-hearted jokes about the ironies of restaurants named after geographic location. Tommy gets his tuna salad which is apparently a treasured food that Lovett doesn’t remember hearing about before. While he’s picking at his chips, he half-listens to the incoherent half-remembered story about the tuna salad and a waitress who wouldn’t stop giving Tommy her number.

Most of the time he almost forgets that Favs and Tommy had a whole life before he dropped in. Working together in the Senate and on the campaign, living together, going out to the same shitty bars every night, falling for each other; all before he ever wrote a speech on a Bolt Bus that Favs somehow chose and then kept choosing. They’ve rarely been to Chicago together with any time to spare; he knows they’re excited to share their stories with him. And yet, he can’t help but feel like an outside observer, intruding on something precious.

After they finish with lunch, they load up into another car to go to the university. They do the Q&A and Lovett jokes about sexually harassing Tommy during ads, makes Favs set him up for a Blue Apron joke, sits in his chair like a throne. They chat with students afterwards for a while before Favs comes up and pulls Lovett away. Tommy is talking about last-minute details for tonight with Tanya when they meet him by the door. She waves them off with an instruction to have fun with their break.

Lovett is not entirely sure where all they drag him in the next few hours. They drive by the glorified frat house they’d lived in during the campaign and around the neighborhood before stopping at the North Avenue beach. He can’t imagine anywhere he’d less like to be than a Lake Michigan beach in October. Even so, he can feel a smile tugging at his face as Tommy’s inability to stay away from the water takes over. He sits on Tommy’s discarded t-shirt and watches the guys trying and failing to dip their feet in the water without getting entirely soaked. When they come flying back up the beach, Favs flicks water from his now damp shirt in Lovett’s face. He rubs at it irritatedly.

“We should head to the hotel. Maybe you can wear a clean shirt for the show tonight.” He tells Tommy, stretching out a hand to be pulled up from the sand.

\------------

After the show they get a lyft and head to the bar. Mike really has gotten the whole gang in one place, including Cody fresh off the high of a baseball win. Everyone is happy and loose and it’s been too easy to forget how much he loved these people even when the job really sucked. But as the night goes on and catching up turns into nostalgia, Lovett starts to feel the weight of every week of the campaign he wasn’t on and every news scandal that they weathered after he left the White House.

As the “do you remember”s start flying, Lovett slips away from the group into the back of a U-shaped booth. He’s finished most of a plate of nachos that were definitely meant for more than one person when the cushion next to him dips down as someone slides in next to him. Tommy’s arm slides around his back and a big hand squeezes his shoulder.

"Hey."

Lovett looks up at him, "Hey yourself."

"You've been quiet tonight, what's up?"

"God you can't expect me to be on all the time for your entertainment Thomas." Tommy raises an eyebrow.  "...I dunno, I don't have a lot to add today.

"C'mon Lo."

"No I mean it. I don't have anything to say about Chicago or the time Favs got attacked by a pigeon in Lincoln Park or the pretzels they haven’t served in this bar since 2008!" He feels his voice rising and mentally cringes.  
  
Tommy just stares at him for a second "Oh."

"Yeah well... I'm thinking about adding a segment to Lovett or Leave It about cheese based foods in bars across America, you want to hear the first set?"

"Lovett." He's got the full force of Tommy Vietor's attention on him now and he frantically backpedals even though he knows from experience it’s  a useless endeavor.

"I'm just saying this cheddar and caramel popcorn bullshit is not only inferior to the caramel apple popcorn in Cleveland but like, the _cheese curds_ Tommy!"

"Lovett." A finger from Tommy’s free hand lands on his lips, shushing the bit and the hysterical tone.  "Lovett. You _know_ we weren't trying to... why didn't you just..."  Tommy sighs heavily and pauses. When he speaks again it’s in the slow measured cadence which he uses to convey important thoughts and when he’s particularly sincere.

"Jon. I know we get a little carried away. But the thing with the pigeons was when I realized I loved him. And the pretzels here and the tuna salad at the deli kept us going through the campaign." Lovett tries to open his mouth and Tommy pushes his hand against it a little more firmly and shakes his head. "And without all of that, I dunno. It's not like the tuna salad sandwiches won the election. But it feels like without them, we wouldn't have ended up in the White House. And we wouldn't have met you.”

Tommy drops his hand and Lovett just stares at him. "It's kinda your story too, okay?" he adds, earnestness shifting to pleading. "But also, just fucking tell us the next time you're feeling left out instead of stewing all day and stealing the nachos that were meant to be for everyone, you weirdo."

Lovett looks down at the empty nachos plate in front of him on the table as he leans into Tommy. He doesn’t have words for the quiet warmth rising in his chest so he just rests his head against Tommy’s broad shoulder and they sit tangled together in companionable silence while the noise of the bar echoes around them.

"God I swear they have the slowest bar service on planet earth.” Favs appears with another round of drinks and slides awkwardly around the curve of the booth to get next to Lovett. "So what’s happening here?" His tone is light but the searching look he gives Lovett confirms that this was a coordinated ambush.

"Tommy’s being a sap about how much he loved you being covered in pigeon shit.” Lovett offers flippantly. Tommy’s head falls back against the wall, exasperated, and Favs leans across Lovett to kiss his exposed neck. As he straightens, he leans in to kiss Lovett too and slings an arm around him on top of Tommy’s arm so that his hand rests on Tommy’s neck.

Lovett takes a deep breath. He can be brave, nestled here between his boys, both manspreading under the table, cozy and loose with alcohol and the high of their show tonight and a successful tour weekend. "And I guess I've sorta felt left out of all your nostalgia today."

Favs is quiet for a moment. "I'm... we just get excited about showing you all the old haunts. I'm sorry Lo."

Lovett shrugs a little "Yeah I know. It's stupid."

"It’s not stupid." Favs is insistent. "I'm sorry." He exchanges a look with Tommy " _We’re_ sorry."

"And you know what?" Tommy adds. "Next month when we do this we get to go to DC. And we can go to that Italian place. We have an extra day to go to the movie theater where we saw Toy Story 3... I think that weird little karaoke bar where Favs got really drunk on daiquiris and sang Whitney Houston to you is still there"

Lovett laughs as Favs groans in mock embarrassment. Tommy grins at them and leans in closer, tilting Lovett’s face toward him for a kiss. Lovett leans into it, relaxed now that he’s come clean about the anxiety he’d been pushing away all day. Favs makes a soft noise and leans in on the other side and Lovett twists to meet him.

They're interrupted by a tapping on the table and break apart to see Cody glaring at them from the other side of the table.  "I know you guys can’t keep your hands off each other but like, Mike went to a lot of trouble to get everyone here and you're kinda ignoring the people who you, y’know, don't see everyday."

They laugh in acknowledgement and Lovett shoves at Tommy’s shoulder to hurry him out of the booth. “Mike! We need more nachos! I’ll Cash App you for them I promise.”

When they get back to the hotel after the party winds down, Tommy and Favs show Lovett just how much they need him around. 

\------------

The next morning, they're in the Lyft on the way to the airport. As always, Favs is starting to freak out about the flight so Tommy says, "So when we get home, you want to go to Connie and Ted’s for dinner?"

Favs smiles and says, "Remember when they ran out of calamari and Lovett almost cried?"  
  
"I did not cry! It is a seafood restaurant! They advertise their squid! Calamari is fried squid! It is part of their brand!" He’s grinning so wide he doesn't even sound annoyed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the mention of the Chicago afterparty in PSA on 10/16, which goes to show how long this has been in progress. 
> 
> All of my feelings about not having been home in 6 months came out as CLE/OH details.  
> \- [the best tacos in Cleveland ](http://barrio-tacos.com/)  
> \- [popcorn shop that does literally have caramel apple (its gross)](http://campbellssweets.com/)  
> -[the cross necklace that Tommy looks at as disgustedly as I did irl](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTX0jXupO6M1acYQm-zvF7_QyiX-PciKsNKopa6KRf50GXNM8S5)  
> Chicago details acquired from the internet and some out of context questions to @xoxodumpsterfire (and then I blatantly ignored the inconvenience of geography).
> 
> Endless thanks to @threeblondeswithanxiety for loving on this fic from its inception as surprise chatfic that she did not ask for and to @angelorum for the encouragement
> 
> Obviously fictional, keep it secret keep it safe etc etc. 
> 
> I'm always screaming about these idiots on tumblr @everyonewillsee


End file.
